


Operation Picture Frame

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel In Love, Destiel Anniversary, Domestic Fluff, Fallen Castiel, Falling In Love, Family Fluff, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Gift Giving, Happy Ending, Human Castiel, Learning to be Human, M/M, POV Castiel, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-27 00:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's fast approaching the fifth anniversary of Castiel rescuing Dean from Hell. Although he used to mark the date privately each year, Castiel decides it's time to include Dean in it. He tries to enlist Sam for help, who doesn't seem to have a clue about gifts and holidays, so it leaves him to fumble his way through it. Castiel finally decides on a deeply personal gift that reminds Dean of what's really important in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Picture Frame

_( **Note:** This is my contribution to the fifth Destiel anniversary. *throws confetti and feels*)_

It required stealth action, Castiel decided after a conversation with Sam that didn't go as planned. The date stood out in his new human brain like a flame licking toward the sky, like a man freed from Hell. How could he forget?

 _Dean Winchester is saved_.

He'd shouted it to Heaven five years ago, after fighting his way through the ashes, fires, and hungry demons to rescue the Righteous Man. The minute he touched Dean's soul, he felt a part of himself branded on it. Although he didn't know it then, as he put back together the man piece by piece, something in him changed forever.

Each year, he marked the date of that event privately, usually through prayer, but as the fifth anniversary approached, everything was different. He wasn't an angel anymore, nor did he pray at all. There was nothing left to pray to. No family left, except those fallen angels who wanted him dead. And the Winchesters. Dean. He couldn't let the anniversary pass without acknowledging it somehow.

Sam apparently detested the idea of holidays, giftgiving, anniversaries, and anything else that reminded him of his abnormal life. The conversation ended in Sam not knowing what to do or how to advise him about it.

So Castiel decided to wait until he went to bed that night. He crept into the younger brother's room in the bunker, stubbing his toe on some dark piece of furniture in the process, and groped around in the shadows for his laptop. Stubbed toes were among the worst human maladies, he immediately decided, ticking it off on his mental list of bad human weaknesses. The throbbing pain occasionally sharpened and he struggled not to let out a growling curse that might wake Sam and ruin the whole thing. He limped across the room and finally located the laptop under a pile of laundry on a table opposite the doorway.

Down to the library he crept, still limping and irritated with himself for being so clumsy, and set himself up on the piece of machinery that he very rarely touched. Most of Sam's questions were answered by a thing called Google though. He could figure it out. He was millions of years old, after all.

Eventually, Castiel did find the thing called Google and typed in the phrase "fifth anniversary" to the search. The first website discussed traditional gifts for the fifth anniversary, which was incredibly helpful to him, not knowing that each year had its own tradition for humans. He liked tradition. He liked consistency. And he learned that the fifth anniversary was the year of wood and silverware.

Well, that sounded boring. At least, from Dean's perspective. Dean did enjoy cooking a lot but a gift of silverware just didn't seem right for him.

Castiel put the laptop back under the pile of laundry and made sure nothing looked suspicious before going to bed as well. He didn't have many possessions but life as a human man slowly filled his room with things. There was nothing of his own that he felt appropriate to give to Dean either. He looked around his room has he changed into his sweatpants for the night, feeling quite impoverished for the first time.

As the days crept closer to September 18, Castiel nearly gave up on the idea of acknowledging that anniversary. It has been so important to him the previous four years, but perhaps, he considered, it was something he should shed from his angel life. That didn't feel right either and he grew increasingly dejected about the limitations of his new human mind.

And his toe still throbbed.

In the middle of the night just before September 18, he awoke quite suddenly from a deep sleep with an idea in his head. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of that before! Throwing off the blankets from his legs, he jumped out of bed, hopped a little bit on his stubbed toe, and swung open the closet doors. Toward the back on the floor of the closet, he had stashed away a small box of things he been carrying around in his old trenchcoat since taking on that vessel. A couple of peppermint candies from diners he had been to with the Winchester brothers, an anti-possession necklace, and a pair of photographs taken from Bobby's place before it burned.

He smiled tenderly. The photographs were waterlogged and wrinkled from the reservoir but they were still in decent shape. One was quite candid of Dean and Sam together, smiling for once. The other was a little bit more posed against the hood of the Impala with Dean, Sam, and Castiel as well. Bobby had taken it before a case that none of them could remember now. Nobody knew why that old man insisted on taking the photo as he called them idgits when they complained about it. They didn't know that Bobby had given Castiel a copy either.

The next day, Castiel put on his red hoodie with the picture stowed in his pocket and told Dean and Sam that he was going for a walk. Of course, Sam didn't know he'd stolen some money out of his wallet either. He had time to develop a job skill and pay him back.

Hours later, he returned back to the bunker with a box stashed in his hoodie. He knew he looked conspicuous as he darted back to his room but they would understand soon enough. It was the first gift he was giving as a human man and a fluttering in his chest suggested what he thought might be excitement. Such new emotions didn't quite make sense to him right away but the more he experienced them, the more readily he could identify them. So that was excitement. He took a moment to feel it and familiarize himself with it.

The day came and, of course, Dean went about his business as if it was any other day. Castiel knew him well enough to not reasonably expect any acknowledgement of it. Remembering Hell was nothing any human soul should be able to do. His purpose became burying the evil and helping Dean look toward the future.

"I have something for you, Dean," he announced as Sam cleared away the dinner dishes.

"A new case, I hope. I'm so bored," Dean replied in his usual sarcasm.

Castiel smiled, folding his arms over the table. "No, nothing like that. I don't suppose you know what today is, do you?"

"Wednesday," said Dean with a light shrug in his shoulders.

"Yes, it's Wednesday." Castiel fell silent for a moment to give Dean a chance to remember it on his own first. When he didn't, the former angel continued, "Today is the fifth anniversary of me rescuing you from Hell."

"Oh…" Dean's green eyes drifted for a moment as his mind worked to absorb that information. "Really? Five years? It seems like a whole other lifetime."

Sudden realization hit Sam from the kitchen doorway and his face brightened. "Oh my God, that's why you were asking me about fifth anniversary stuff! I get it now!"

Confused, Dean looked over his shoulder at his brother. "What?"

"Yes." Clearing his throat, Castiel brushed off the vague uncomfortable sense of embarrassment at being caught, so to speak, as he produced a flat rectangular box from his lap.

"What's this?" Dean stared down the box suspiciously.

"Open it," said Castiel. He didn't expect the emotion of anxiety to rise to the surface but it did. "I wanted you to have something to remind you of why you were given a second chance. It's not to remember what happened in Hell. It's to think about what's important in your life, or at least what I suspect is important in your life." Now the anxiety shifted to bashfulness at the presumption that he was included with all the important things. He wanted to think he was but there was no way to be certain.

Dean's rough hands tore open the box and angled its contents toward his face, staring down at a waterlogged framed photograph of himself sitting with Sam and Castiel on the hood of the Impala. Briefly, his eyes lifted to Castiel's face and dropped to the framed photograph again.

"It's a wood frame since wood is the traditional fifth anniversary gift among humans. The frame is oak. I apologize for the photograph being damaged but it was in my coat for many years," he told Dean.

Sam braced his hands on the table and leaned over, examining the photograph in the frame. "Where did you hear that? About wood."

"The Google told me so," Castiel said, wondering if he made a mistake.

Smiling from the corner of his mouth, Dean glanced at his brother and repeated, "The Google," the way Castiel had said it.

A chuckling sort of smile formed on Sam's mouth, knowingly, just the way the sales girl had done. Quietly, the younger brother made an exit from the room and patted Castiel's shoulder on his way.

Once they were alone, Dean's expression warmed. That was usually the way of it for him. Recently, he had developed a relaxed sense of warmth around Castiel but he hardened again the minute anyone else came into the room. Castiel tried not to analyze it too much, mainly because he knew he didn't have the tools to analyze his own emotions let alone those of another man. But Dean took the photograph out of the box and ran his fingertips over the glass.

"How long did you carry this around?" he asked softly.

"Since the winter before the apocalypse," he replied, hesitating. "Bobby let me have a copy of it. He took the photo, if you remember."

"Oh yeah…" Dean sounded far away. His fingers toyed with his bottom lip in thought. "Is this why you disappeared the other day?"

"Yes. It was quite the learning experience. I told the sales girl the frame had to be wood for a fifth anniversary and she asked me which man was my husband. She smiled strangely, like she might smile at a puppy or a kitten. I said no, that it was the anniversary of raising you from Hell, and I pointed to you in the photograph, and she started laughing again. She said that was a mighty way to put it." Castiel shrugged. "I don't know what was so amusing, but at least she seemed to like me."

A burst of laughter threw Dean's head back. His body leaned in the chair, balancing it on two legs, as he too found the entire thing rather amusing. Although Castiel didn't quite understand the humor in the situation, seeing Dean laugh with such mirth infected him across the table with a smile and a soft chuckle of his own.

"Oh, Cas, that's great. That's fantastic." Wiping a couple of errant tears from his eyes, Dean came down from the burst of laughter.

Yes. It was great that he could give Dean those moments of happiness, though he would never say so out loud. Undisclosed boundaries presented themselves early on and Castiel knew when to keep certain emotions to himself, like the magnetic pull toward Dean and making him happy. Making the hunter happy made the former angel happy in return. It was the easiest thing to understand about being human. It was, quite simply, the desire to love and to be loved.

"I didn't do this to remind you of why I had to rescue you," he said in more defined terms, returning the subject back to the gift. "I never want you to have nightmares or remember what you went through again. But I do want you to see that photograph and think about why rescuing you was one of the most important things I've ever done in my existence. That's what I thought about when the photograph was mine. That's what I want you to think about now that it's yours, Dean."

Nodding, Dean's eyes softened with an emotion Castiel couldn't identify, and his mouth thinned out into a subtle smile.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

Castiel shuffled in his seat. "Do you like it? Did I do wrong?"

Without putting down the photograph, Dean stood and rounded the table. He approached Castiel from behind and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, chin resting in the crook of his neck. Part of Castiel wanted to get up and move away, fearing that Dean would know too much about the new state of his emotions in that close proximity, but he saw himself lift a hand to squeeze Dean's wrist which crossed over his collarbones.

"I don't get gifts that often. This means a lot to me," he whispered. "Thanks, Cas."

"You're welcome, Dean." That was all he needed to hear. His soul became buoyant, nearly lifting from his chest. He smiled in spite of himself.

Quickly, feather soft, Dean kissed Castiel's cheek, and then let go of the embrace immediately. He receded further into the bunker with his photograph like that moment hadn't happened as far as anyone else was concerned. It was between them alone after dinner on the fifth anniversary of Dean Winchester's second chance at life.

It wasn't a declaration of love and it wasn't an invitation to come to bed. But it was a start. Something shifted and Castiel knew it as he sat at the table, lingering in the remains of Dean's aftershave in the air.


End file.
